hp says that they developed some technology that could replace the transitor.

could anyone explain what a transitor is (+ what it does), and what the new technology developed is?

link to article: http://www.aspfree.com/showblog/7673...d-up-Computers

thanks

A small electronic device containing a semiconductor and having at least three electrical contacts, used in a circuit as an amplifier, detector, or switch. -- Dictionary.com

Little more detail. Most transistors act as a gateway. They require a trigger of voltage to switch and complete a circuit. Several transistors create an intergated curcuit that is capable of either a nand, nor, or, and, etc logic circuit. An intergrated circuit is an electronic device chip created back in the 60's roughly. At that time a simply add subtract calutaor could have cost over $300.00. There is about 200 million transistors on the current economical released cpus like P4 or AMD 64. This in terms is an intergrated circuit.

Thanks, Brian1, that clarifies a bit, but brings another question. So a transitor, when grouped together to create an integrated circuit, basically acts to "define" logic expressions to the computer?

So if I were to write code:
how would the transitor or the intergrated circuit fit into or use this code?

Transistors also work together to create many gates (switches) to allow for many combination and possiblilties of on and off states.
Heres some good links:
http://www.williamson-labs.com/480_xtor.htm
http://www.intel.com/education/transworks/INDEX.HTM
http://www.electronics-tutorials.com...ransistors.htm

P.S. We all know that HP stole that technology from The Federation, They probably had spies on the Enterprise.

Please, Kirk and Spock would never allow a spy on their ship. You are talking about the legendary Captain Kirk here.

It is far more likely, that Dr. Daniel Jackson has, with Dr. Samantha Carter's help, developed this technology using some of the memories he has from being "ascended". Or it's possible that the Asgard, mainly Supreme Commander Thor, gave this technology to the SGC, where there was a leak to the NID (which HP is obviously part of, what other company is more suitable to backwards engineering advanced alien technology, and dont say Microsoft ).

PS. I wonder if that is the same technology that made the Replicators so advanced

sorry had to

Nice,
LMAO.

Whats a transistor
basically a sandwich of three slices of silicon, usually doped with an impurity to make them either positvely or negatively charged, With wire connectors to each of the slices in the sandwich. And usually set up with the positive in the middle and the two negatives on the outer - thus making a NPN Transistor.

A transistor acts either as a switch or as an amplifier, but imagine a tap in the middle of a hose where you can control the flow of current in the hose, you can be either fully on or off or somewhere in between depending on the action of the tap.

Usually a small current flowing into the middle slice of the transistor ( called the base ) will alter a much larger current flowing between the two other slices, either in an on/off manner or by varying the current flow. The other two are called the emitter and collector.

heres some links you may find helpful

http://www.vintage-radio.com/repair-...ors-work.shtml

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com...ks-channel.htm
and look for semiconductors

hope this helps
floppy

BTW
I dont think transistors will be on the way out for many years yet, they are just far too useful

You all are way off. Although the SGC could have done it it wasn't them. It was the MIB. They needed a little extra cash.

thanks guys! the links were great, some had nice diagrams to explain it

all right so I think i understand what it is now, but how does it make the computer "work"?
does it do so by having different positions (true, false, on, off)?

Have a good look around that "How stuff works " site

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com...rs-channel.htm

floppy

Speaking of the SGC. It would be nice if the replicators did attacked earth that they would absorb the technology of Microsoft and then they would become vulnerable to viruses and spyware.

Brian1
" Google the Linux way @ http://www.google.com/linux "

That sounds like a great plan, Give carter a call and let her know.